By Jessie Weisner (Twitter: @Jessie__Weisner)

Caroline gains public input on development plans

Aug 30, 2018 | 12:59 PM

The Village of Caroline and Clearwater County hosted two public engagement sessions to provide some guidance on municipal and intermunicipal development plans.

Wednesday and Thursday saw a turnout of more than 70 residents , aiming to provide ideas and learn more about future growth.

“We are getting quite a bit of feedback from area residents about the desire to see more growth, employment in the area, more opportunities for residential in the area,” says Craig Teal, Director of Parkland Community Planning Services. “Maybe some improved municipal services such as trail systems and recreation facilities.”

The Alberta government has made intermunicipal and municipal development plans mandatory, striving to facilitate growth and direction in communities.

The municipal plan is, essentially, a blueprint which aids community growth over the next 25 to 30 years. It identifies areas best for residential, commercial and industrial developments.

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The intermunicipal plan outlines how Clearwater County and Caroline will coordinate their efforts to manage land uses along common boundaries, and ensure the two municipalities are moving in the same direction when it comes to planning for future recreation areas, transportation connections and use of services.

This is Caroline’s first time producing an intermunicipal plan, and the last municipal plan created in 1998 will be largely updated.

The village and partnering committees have been working on gathering information for the last few months, identifying potential areas of growth and issues.

“At this stage we have a lot of writing yet to do,” says Teal. “We’ll use the input that we get from today’s session plus our background research to basically create some policy suggestions and we’ll run that through our steering committees. Then we’ll bring those back out in forms of draft plans for further community input and review. That will take place over the next several months.”

Caroline Mayor John Rimmer says he has high hopes for new business after developing a 70-acre light industrial area northeast of the village two years ago.

“I know that we in Caroline have been in discussion with several different businesses from outside of our area to entice them into coming into the community and bringing their business here,” says Rimmer. “Those talks are ongoing so hopefully they’ll be able to utilize that property.”

The deadline for finalizing all aspects of the two plans is spring of 2019.